


Missed you, Wolf

by spectralbeef



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC) Spoilers, Bottom Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friendship/Love, M/M, Penetrative Sex, Play Fighting, Polyamory, Porn with Feelings, Post-Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC), The Witcher Lore, mild reference to possible eating disorder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:46:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23827819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectralbeef/pseuds/spectralbeef
Summary: “Heard there was a witcher competing in Touissant’s tourney and I thought, hey,” Eskel’s amusement arrives before he does. “Haven’t seen Geralt in a while, maybe I’ll drop in.”
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 20
Kudos: 223





	1. Witchers are not knights, pup

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who hasn't played the Blood and Wine DLC, Geralt gets a pretty cushy contract from the Duchess of Touissant and grumpily gets to lives his best knightly life.

The sun’s setting over Touissant’s tourney ground, the west wind blowing it from the sky. Geralt lifts his head from his steel sword, pauses a long stroke of his whetstone to scent the air. Wine - but this is Touissant, the smell’s barely worth cataloging - fat spat from a cookfire, metal polish and heady evening jasmine. The wind stirs the tent flaps and just like that, Geralt’s standing on warm stone at Kaer Morhen and Eskel’s easing a Katakan’s peroneal tendon free with his knife. Eskel’s always got the same scent, dust and leather, sure, same as all their brethren, but under that, Eskel’s skin’s as sweetly vanilla as the sandwort petals he overuses.

“Heard there was a witcher competing in Touissant’s tourney and I thought, hey,” Eskel’s amusement arrives before he does. “Haven’t seen Geralt in a while, maybe I’ll drop in.”

Geralt takes his sweet time over sheathing his sword, only looks up once its back on its scabbard. Sure, his heart leaps into his throat when he sees Eskel. Course it does. But this is an old game they play, and he’s got no fear of being misunderstood. “Might’ve been Lambert.”

“Heard it from Lambert,” Eskel says, “Sends his regards, says you’re a sell out.”

“Won a crossbow with my name on it.”

“Oh yeah, he heard about that too. Says you’re a loser and a sell out.”

Eskel’s getting old, he crumples when he smiles. Fuck, Geralt loves that. He eyes the distance between them and says, “Fuck Lambert. Why are we talking about that asshole?” He starts forward and Eskel gives up his nonchalant lean against the tent posts before Geralt’s set a foot down, meets Geralt halfway, grips the back of his neck, drops their foreheads together.

“Hey, White Wolf. See you got to be a knight after all.”

Geralt huffs, but it’s a pleased sort of huff, a little embarrassed. Trust Eskel to see the newest boy to the Bastion, snotty from sobbing, wailing for his Ma, for all his lost dreams of chivalry. But even as he thinks it, Geralt knows that ain’t the version of himself Eskel’s seeing. That where Geralt sees shame in a child’s daydream, Eskel only sees another reason for pride. “Guess I did,” he says.

The tent’s a shrine to everything ten year old Geralt wanted. The armour on the stand’s a knight's, not a witcher’s, plate catching the candlelight, linened with heraldry. There’s a banner flying from the top pole, the shield he’s keeping but wouldn’t be caught dead using is propped up outside. He had food brought to him, not the dregs, not tepid stew dropped outside his room by an innkeep keeping him away from the customers downstairs, but soft cheeses, fresh bread, ripe fruit and wine so rich he’s still flush cheeked from drinking it. He doesn’t know if he wants to be proud or mortified, doesn’t know if he wants to lead Eskel from plate to heraldry, wax over a mouthful of grapes, or pack the lot away and pretend they’re shacked up in a ruin, rain lashing in through the cracks in the lean to roof.

Eskel’s looking round and fuck, even that gaze of his falls gentle when it comes back to Geralt. He knows there’s thin skin here. He knows and he ain’t gonna bruise it. “Blue and red,” He says, offhand, “Not usually your colours.”

“Wasn’t consulted.” Geralt steps back, not far, just enough to get a look at Eskel. His embarassment’s starting to make him itch, and he’s getting terse. It’s not who he wants to be, ain’t got the slightest inclination to carry on down that path when he’s got Eskel to himself for the first time in a long time. It’s been months since Eskel stood at his side against the Wild Hunt and there’d been no time for lovers’ reunions. Now, Geralt can get a proper look at him and he takes his time over it. Eskel’s lined more deeply, new scar notching his neck, going grey at the temples.

“Huh,” Geralt says, brushes a hand through Eskel’s loose hair, “Getting to look like Vesemir, old man.”

And hell, if that wasn’t the wrong way to lead them. The cold mountain wind, the spit of Vesemir’s pyre takes both of them, drops the mood, chills Touissant’s fragrant night air. Eskel shutters. They’ve yet to share this, yet to drink until they’re vulnerable, yet to hurt in the space they build for each other, safe from the rest of the world. It isn’t the time, not yet, so Geralt curses himself, eases them out of it, says, “I heard Papa Vesemir when I took the contract. Witchers are not knights, pup,” Geralt’s impression is a bad one and it’s a mercy to them both, “A witcher completes a job and gets paid.”

“Expects no honour, no glory. Yeah, I remember. Also remember you having some opinions on that.” Eskel draws Geralt back in and Geralt’s grateful to go, soft shirt to leathers, Eskel’s mouth to his neck, breathing him in. “I missed you, Wolf.”

And Geralt wants to say, wish you hadn’t left like that, wish you’d given me more, given us more. More than a tense goodbye at Kaer Morhen’s battered down gates, them still sorrowing over Vesemir, smoke in their eyes from his still smouldering pyre. The night Geralt had spent in the fortress without Vesemir had been the kinda misery that Eskel had ridden away from but they could’ve made it through together, eased it. Geralt had known, as he lay awake in the wreck of his home, nursing an ache so bad he thought it was gonna break him, so too Eskel had laid in the open, the stars of his ceiling the only difference between them. Pain the same, loss the same, loneliness the same, and the only feeling preventable. He doesn’t say it. Instead, he noses at Eskel’s temple, nudges him to lift his head. “Come here,” he says gruffly, and kisses him.

Kissing Eskel, it’s different from kissing anyone else. Yen, Triss, Jaskier, they all have the higher ground, their lead predetermined, negotiated, decided. Here, as every time with Eskel, they scrap it out, get the jump on each other with teeth and tongue, Eskel’s hands tightening in Geralt’s hair, Geralt tugging at the scar splitting Eskel’s lower lip until he laughs softly and asks,  
“You got long to spend in the saddle tomorrow?”

Geralt huffs, softens. Eskel always asks, always adjusts accordingly and it’s the only kinda care Geralt never had to learn to accept. “Did my hard riding today.”

“Too sore?”

Geralt takes a scan down his body. His thighs ache, sure, but he’d ridden in his own leathers, left the plate and the pauldrons behind, and got off relatively light with the chafing of riding full tilt round the tourney track. “No,” he says, hums contentedly as Eskel pulls their hips flush together. “Go slow. Missed you.”

Stripping Eskel out of his armour is fluid with familiarity. Eskel’s worn variations on the same thing as long as he’s been on the path. Same top laced doublet, thick red fabric leather striped and studded, the same stiff, open collar that Geralt drags his cheek against as he sucks at Eskel’s neck, under his jaw, the uneven, unhaired place where his scars ripple through his stubble. Same off white undershirt, washed worn, sweat yellowed under Eskel’s pits. Same trousers, low on his hips, thick belted. The leather’s supple and worn in all the usual places, silk smooth between Eskel’s thighs and Geralt rubs his face against it, earns himself a laugh.

“A witcher,” Eskel says, winding his fingers into Geralt’s hair. “Oughta be above succumbing to distraction.”

“Then I guess you better hit the road.” Geralt moves to get back to his feet and Eskel tightens his grip, grins down at him, and fuck, that grin. Geralt’s known it his whole life, feels like, can’t remember not knowing how good it feels to get Eskel grinning at him like that. He bites back a groan, plays up with a protest, plays like this ain’t a scrap he’s already lost. “Quoting Master Hemmicks isn’t gonna get you laid.”

Eskel snorts, tugs Geralt’s head back, bares his neck. “You learned the Bestiary with my cock in your ass, quit playing smart.”

They fuck lazily, Geralt growling, grinding up every time Eskel baits him by holding still, always buried deep, always angled so Geralt’s got nothing to do but snap and bare his teeth, pant in frustration until Eskel laughs, rolls his hips, sets them off again. Time stops meaning much. Stamina’s a witcher’s gift and Eskel’s set a pace that they keep up until they’re sweat slick, moving together in the firelight, fitted together so tight that their slow heartbeats twin, breath tangles. They’re fronting now, tussling, Geralt groaning into Eskel’s neck as Eskel fucks deep, tightening around his cock to keep him locked in place. Eskel grunts, drops his head against Geralt’s chest and struggles to stave his orgasm off.

“Prick,” he manages as Geralt rolls his hips, uses a lifetime’s learning and watches Eskel’s shoulders heave, his arms shake as he fists the bedding.

“Cede,” Geralt pants. He couldn’t play unaffected if he wanted to; Eskel’s thick in him, pushing up against every sensitive spot every time he rolls his hips. Eskel’s balls have tightened up against his ass and Geralt heaves through a breath, knows all he’s gonna do is grind and Eskel’s gonna spill. “Hey,” he rasps and when Eskel moans and lifts his head, Geralt kisses him and fuck, it’s sweet and when Geralt murmurs Eskel’s name against his lips, it’s sweeter.

“Asshole,” Eskel chokes and cedes, comes buried so deep Geralt is pretty damn sure he tastes the salt sour of his spunk.

\-----

Geralt wakes before Eskel, shifts on the oversoft mattress in his oversized tent and presses his lips to his brother’s shoulder. He knows this stretch better than any part of his own body: the mountain range of adolescent acne, deep punctures from a siren’s claws, a nick in his shoulder blade earned sparring in Kaer Morhen’s courtyard a few weeks short of starting on the Path. He pauses over a new mark, snarled over the ball of Eskel’s shoulder, presses his lips to it. There’s a bond made in sharing scars. Every year on the Path saw them slogging back to Kaer Morhen newly scraped and gouged and it meant something to sit together over hooch and hear the contracts, the run ins, that left their mark. Geralt’s grateful to Jaskier and his songs for easing the Path for him, for his brethren, but his scars, once between him and his Guild, are now between him and any whore, nobleman or fisherwoman he meets. He misses the intimacy of his life read from his body by hands and lips that love him.

Eskel murmurs as Geralt’s stubble rasps over his back, grunts an answer the question not yet asked. “Garkain.”

“Healed good,” Geralt works down, traces Eskel’s hip with his thumb, back and forward over a scar he doesn’t remember. It’s thick, rough to the touch. Infected. Reopened. Poorly sutured.

“Endrega?” Eskel’s been susceptible to their venom ever since the Trial of Dreams. He’d reacted bad to the second lot of mutagens, laid up in the tower where they took the boys that death had its hands on. Master Varin had run Geralt off his feet and still, in the early morning, had to climb the tower stairs and drag him from under Eskel’s bed.

Eskel shifts, rolls onto his back. “Yeah,” he mumbles, “Endrega.” He takes Geralt’s hand, guides it to his thigh, to the neat slice through muscle. “Got a match for yours.”

“Renfri cut deeper.” Geralt runs his thumb over it, back and forth, and Eskel exhales, settles into the pillows. “Another princess?”

“Cat.” Eskel chuckles low and throaty as Geralt wraps a hand around his cock. “Hey Wolf. Ain’t you got a tourney to win?”

Amusement leaves Geralt in a soft huff. He licks his palm and snorts when Eskel chases after his hand. He jacks him slow and tight, knows Eskel’s body like he knows his own, runs his thumb over the plush, slick head of Eskel’s cock and precum drips down his wrist. Eskel groans, pushes at Geralt’s shoulder.

“Get on your back.”

“Hm,” Geralt slows but doesn’t ease off. “No.” He pours slick over his hand, over Eskel’s cock and Eskel, like he always does, shudders when it seeps over his balls. Geralt catches Eskel’s nipple between his teeth, tugs and Eskel swears at him, dissolves on a moan when Geralt sits down on his cock, grinds and then stills. Eskel chokes, bats at him and Geralt laughs, leans in for a lazy kiss. He keeps Eskel prone, goes so slow Eskel’s eyes are rolling back in his head.

“You practising-” he manages, “A form of torture?”

“Got time,” Geralt says and it’s all the explanation he offers for putting Eskel and his mind asunder.

\-----

Sweat-soaked and sated, Geralt settles against Eskel, pushes dark strands of wet hair from Eskel’s forehead.

“Fuck off,” Eskel mutters, cracks an eye, smiles. Geralt snorts, kisses his temple, kisses the low bridge of his nose. “Sap,” Eskel says.

“Hn.” Geralt carries on, the apple of Eskel’s cheek, the beginning of his uneven stubble, the jackknife of his jaw. Geralt’s gone far too fucking long without him and yeah, it’s making him soft but he’s always been soft around Eskel. Tame, Yen said, dismissive as she likes to be, but it’s the tameness of wolves around a den, yapping as they tussle. Their swords still lie either side of the bed, always in reach, and though they are wrapped up in each other, the shifts and the sounds of the early morning do not escape them.

“Fuck I’m hungry.” Eskel’s stomach rumbles and yeah, Geralt might feel that same hunger but he’s got no intention of moving. Instead, he traces his thumb down the slump of Eskel’s cock, gets a curse and a shudder. “Always,” Eskel mutters, “So goddamn insatiable, Wolf.” He cards a hand through Geralt’s hair, grips hard and Geralt groans, dips in for a kiss. “Up. Spunk ain’t breakfast.”

Over cold cuts and cheese, bread fresh as the morning, Geralt watches Eskel eat. A witcher has two ways of eating: stuffing their gob in a glut or sucking on hardtack from sun up to sundown when their supply pack wouldn’t weight down an ant. Eskel’s doing the former, goes quick, takes his fill, too used to interruption from bandits, wild animals, the ever onward drive of the Path. Geralt’s been well fed the last year, left Skellige with a feast in his belly, shacked up with Jaskier in Novigrad while Ciri interrogated the many shapes of her future. That she chose to join her pack on the Path came as no surprise to anyone, but Geralt was pleased she’d stopped to think about it, considered claiming her place on Nilfgard's throne before she’d laughed and embraced all the possibilities of anonymity. Ciri’s journeyman year had seen them bring in enough coin for an easy stretch of summer spent lazing on river banks after jobs, drinking plenty, eating better than Geralt had in years. Closest he’s ever had to a holiday, watching Ciri claim the freedom she’d been dreaming for herself.

She’d not been gone a month before Peyrac-Peyran had swept him up in a trumpet sounding blaze of Toussiant frippery. Living since has been...easy. Easy as it comes for a witcher. Easy as it’d come for most with a damn vineyard to his name, meals cooked and waiting for him, a soft bed in a house with a roof that doesn’t leak, someone else on hand to ease the pebbles out of Roach’s hooves, turn the hay for her. He’s started eating like a man who takes food as a certainty. He grunts, chews the crust he’s torn off and offers Eskel the rest of his part of the loaf.  
Eskel looks at him funny. Sharing food’s a straight split, always has been. A swap, well practised, with what they’ve each got no taste for. This morning, Geralt’s taken a bigger share of the ham, the olives and Eskel’s got both apples, is crunching through one with a speed that’ll backfire on him later.

“Take it,” Geralt mutters, lays it down between them. Eskel’s stripped back to hard muscle, not a trace of that comfortable layer of fat that Jaskier can’t settle until Geralt’s gained. Seeing his brother, Geralt’s starting to understand it.

 _I just want to make your life a little easier_ , Jaskier always told him, slotting the sweet candy and salted pretzel’s Geralt’s got a weakness for into his pack. Easily taken as patronising and Geralt had done his fair share of that before grudgingly accepting it care. It had been just another Jaskierism until now, bread laid between the two of then, Geralt healthy and soft over muscle, Eskel a no dissection necessary anatomy class.

“I need a piss,” Geralt says, leans down for a kiss before he gives Eskel the space he’s gonna need to take the bread. Leaves wishing he had the faintest idea how to explain what it means.


	2. Just a reason I love you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt growls his satisfaction, tugs down his collar, tips his head to show Eskel the bruise his lips had brought up under Geralt’s pale skin. “Wore your favour.”  
> Eskel’s eyes darken as he draws his thumb over it. It’s a more fitting favour for a witcher - Eskel hadn’t so much as touched a monogrammed handkerchief in all his long years, couldn’t have given Geralt a flower without including all the uses it might have when he was finished wearing it in his hair. Geralt’s pulse beats unsteady and Eskel smiles, presses lightly on his carotid artery and watches Geralt’s eyelids flutter.  
> “Guess you owe me,” Eskel says, “Since my favour won you the tourney.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheers for the comments and the kudos, you're all a fucking delight <3
> 
> This chapter sees our boys drunkenly making out in the stands and the White Wolf having a minor existential crisis about his living situation. You know, all that good shit.

Tourney done, crowds dispersed, the arena’s empty. Eskel’s alone in the stands, has kept his patient distance while Touissant’s latest champion is mobbed by the nobility. He’d waved off Geralt’s offer of a seat in the box with the knight’s families, their wives, their lovers. 

“Nah,” he’d said that morning, after Geralt had dismissed the squire who’d had the unfortunate experience of trying to wake two well fucked, dozing witchers. “Ain’t got any intention of missing you falling on your ass cos I complimented some duchess on her wine.” 

He keeps his seat when he sees Geralt, wine blushed and still wearing the foliage he’d been crowned with. Geralt winds through the stands, too drunk to take his time, vaults the last set of seats and drops a bottle into Eskel’s lap. 

“Lambert,” Eskel says, “Is gonna have an aneurysm.”

“Yeah,” Geralt puts his feet up on the railing next to Eskel’s. “Sure is. Still, the kid’s always saying he wants to pack in being a witcher.”

They drink in easy quiet, drain most of the bottle, watch the shadows lengthen across the arena’s bloodied sand. Idly, Eskel tracks Geralt’s motions, finds the feint that had consolidated his victory. Not Geralt’s usual style but then he’d also forgone his potions, his signs. Fought on as equal a footing as a mutant could against men. Eskel huffs, bumps his brother’s shoulder. 

“Old Papa Vesemir,” he says and the name has such warm weight, “He would’ve been proud, Wolf. Woulda worn your colours.”

Geralt snorts, lets his gaze drift in the current of the middle distance. The old witcher would have hidden it well but when the bout began, he would have been behind Geralt every parry, every turn of his blade and the corrections on Geralt’s form Vesemir gave afterwards would testify to it. 

“Didn’t use signs,” Geralt says, “Knew he’d expect me to play fair.”

“Don’t push that shit on Vesemir.” Eskel’s looking at him and there’s almost too much love it in; Geralt can’t hold his gaze for long. “You played fair all on your own.”

Geralt draws his teeth over his bottom lip, takes it. It is fierce in him, burnt and buried but still beating strong, the standard he holds for himself. Kindness is no good friend to a witcher and yet he can’t give it up. Every winter, he’d dismount Roach, brush her down, head for the keep and get two steps inside before one of his brothers was on him.  _ How much money you lose us this year, White Wolf?  _ A joke on the surface but only the surface. His working for free made their lives harder when they passed through after him. Not always - there were good folk out there, kind folk who brought in a bigger crop now their fallow fields were free of wraiths, necrophages. Who could fish the rivers in peace, who’d compensate the next witcher better from fuller purses, who’d have the White Wolf in mind when they offered a room at the inn to his brothers. 

But there were plenty who took as weakness Geralt’s inability to take a daughter’s dowry, to accept orens from the hands of an alderman with starving children at his door. He’d seen it happen, stood waiting with the horses while Eskel negotiated their fee, got spat on, cursed. A monster as heartless as the ghouls eating corpses in the long meadow. Worse, he knew Eskel’s logic held - take no pay for a job, go hungry and the next job’ll get harder, messier and that next village with the drowner problem will stay that way. His brother had a head for the bigger picture that Geralt had never developed, despite spending half his life embroiled in it. 

“Hey,” Eskel’s looking at him and its the nudge of his knee that brings Geralt up and out of his self-berating. “It ain’t a criticism.” He lays his hand over Geralt’s, squeezes. “Just a reason I love you.” 

\-----

By the time the sun’s painted the horizon fuschia, the third bottle’s down to the dregs. Geralt’s about to suggest a drunken tussle in the arena, his mind on the rematch Eskel had promised him a few winters gone. He’d had his ass soundly handed to him and five years was too long to leave that kinda stain on a man’s reputation.

Instead, Eskel blinks, slow and heavy from the wine and asks, “Ain’t there a feast being held in your honour?”

Geralt tilts his head back, listens to the music rolling down from Beauclair. He’s got no desire to be feted. He’s got no desire to leave Eskel’s side and Eskel couldn’t be chased up the hill to play courtier to the duchessa by a nest of nekkers. He finishes the bottle, leans in and kisses Eskel slow, licks the wine from his mouth. Eskel murmurs against his lips, slides a hand into Geralt’s hair. 

“Shouldn’t you be with your lady love?” He asks, wry and Geralt snorts, kisses him deeper. He’d scoffed often enough at Touissant and its traditions but down on one knee, laurel in his hair, being cheered by the crowd as the tourney’s patron extolled his virtues, he’d felt a swell of satisfaction at the reveal that he’d had made his chivalric vow on his love for ‘his heart’s captor’. He knew Eskel wouldn’t have picked it up, knew his brother’d be sitting in the stands thinking the same as everyone else gathered there - smelling lilac and gooseberries, hearing a snatch of one of Jaskier’s ballads. 

“That fucking vow,” Geralt says, “I made to you.” 

Eskel pulls back, searches Geralt’s face. Geralt looks back, open, honest with the truth of it. “Fuck,” Eskel mumbles, flushes. “Yeah, I like that.”

Geralt growls his satisfaction, tugs down his collar, tips his head to show Eskel the bruise his lips had brought up under Geralt’s pale skin. “Wore your favour.” 

Eskel’s eyes darken as he draws his thumb over it. It’s a more fitting favour for a witcher - Eskel hadn’t so much as touched a monogrammed handkerchief in all his long years, couldn’t have given Geralt a flower without including all the uses it might have when he was finished wearing it in his hair. Geralt’s pulse beats unsteady and Eskel smiles, presses lightly on his carotid artery and watches Geralt’s eyelids flutter. 

“Guess you owe me,” Eskel says, “Since my favour won you the tourney.”

“Thought it was the love in my heart.” Eskel’s thumb is still strong against his neck and need is coursing through him, bringing up the flush on the tips of his ears, the few places his damaged facial capillaries were still close to the skin. “Sounds like you owe me.”

“How’s that, Wolf?”

“Brought you honour, didn’t I?” Geralt opens his eyes, smiles slow and heated. “Brought you the tourney champion to bed.” 

“Gonna be taxing for him, for sure.” Eskel’s smile is better than anything Geralt knows, better than a good ale at the end of a long day, better than a hot bath and a well built fire. Geralt sighs, drops the bottle and stands, makes a show of stretching out the strain in his back. Eskel huffs but his gaze stays dark and fixed on the shift of Geralt’s muscles. “Fuck you,” Eskel mutters, snatches at his hips. “Come here.” 

Geralt sucks on his bottom lip, plays at thinking about it. “I don’t know. Bet I’d get a free bedding from a whore up in Beauclair right about now.” 

Eskel tugs, brings Geralt inelegantly down into his lap, knees knocking off the bench. Geralt grunts, grabs his shoulders, is laughing into their kiss until he ain’t laughing any more, until all the blood in his body’s run south and the way Eskel’s rocking his hips, just enough to be suggestive, that ain’t helping.

“I draw the line,” Eskel murmurs, “At fucking in the stands. Still got that fancy tent?” 

“Yeah.” Eskel draws his hands away and Geralt growls out his disappointment, kisses him sharp and needy. The wine’s gone straight to his head and he wants nothing past the hot thrust of Eskel’s cock, would happily shove his trousers down around his thighs and mount him on the benches. “But I can do you one better.”

“Oh yeah?” Eskel might have drawn a line but he’s muddying it, Geralt’s ass cupped in his hands, that slow roll of his hips getting steadily filthier. “I ain’t fucking you under the stands either.” 

Geralt groans, leans his weight in, grinds down. “S’a surprise.” He’s already playing out their drunken stumble into the house, tripping over the doorstep, Eskel pinning him up against the sun warm plaster, getting his hands under his shirt. And the bed, fuck, the bed. They’re gonna test the hell out of that bedframe. But while he’s been following his cock, Eskel’s stilled, dropped his hands onto his thighs. 

“I ain’t in the mood for surprises,” he says tightly. And that isn’t surprising. Geralt’s had so many lovers. Someone’s already here with you, Eskel’s thinking, seeing Geralt shacked up with some member of Touissant’s royalty - Geralt can see it all over his face. There’s someone else, and he can’t, not again. Not now. Not when it’s finally just the two of them again. Eskel spirals straight down into it and Geralt swears at himself, gets unsteadily to his feet. He’s shit with his words sober and he’s too wine addled to attempt to navigate this conversation drunk. Instead, he holds out a hand. 

“Saddle up. I’ll show you.” 

\-----

They follow the track uphill in a silence Geralt doesn’t know how to ease. Eskel’s hands are tight on the reins and Scorpion’s nostrils are slitted: he shakes his great head in protest as they follow the white daubed boundary wall of one of Touissant’s many vineyard estates. Geralt should bring Roach alongside, should tell him it ain’t what he’s thinking. There’s no sorceress to greet them. It’ll be just the two of them and fuck, Geralt wants that too, is hungry for time with his brother, longs for them to be wrapped up behind walls of their own making, the world shut out for as long as an innkeep’s patience holds, for as long as the thundering rain’s an excuse to stay under shelter. 

But if he says that, he’ll have to explain. Explain the house on the hill with its guest suite, with its kitchen and outbuildings, with its cottages for the staff and the families who work the vineyard, he’ll have to explain the wine that’s soaked into the bones of the place, rising up from the floorboards, decadence in every step. The thought of describing it, saying  _ I _ and  _ own _ and  _ estate _ all in the same sentence ties his guts in a knot. 

They’re witchers, goddamnit. He’s a witcher. A witcher owns nothing but the swords on his back, his armour, his horse if he’s lucky, horse jerky if he’s not. A witcher does not live in luxury, a witcher does not spend his summers lazing on a terrace, a witcher does not have people who serve him, who cook for him, who call him honorifics. Such a man is not a witcher and Geralt might, once, have wanted to be such a man but that dream was scrubbed out of him in the tubs at Kaer Morhen, sloughed off until he was red skinned and howling for his Ma.

He knows what he is. He thinks he knows what he is. He must know what he is. He’s had eighty years of practice. He curses under his breath. Corvo Bianco, with its acres and its well stocked larder, its home comforts, it has warped the set shape of his life. It could remould his life completely and what he shares with Eskel, what he has always shared with Eskel, the foundation on which the two of them sit, would be half ripped out, replaced, renovated, and all they shared would be past. 

“Fuck,” Geralt mutters, has a mind to turn them around but Roach has seen home, might be a witcher’s horse but has none of Geralt’s qualms about accepting a dry stable, sweet summer hay. She clops through the gate, needs no guiding, has her head down in the water trough before Geralt’s had time to process the well worn path, the green rendered houses, the courtyard. There’s no going back now, she’s decided that for him. 

“Wolf,” Eskel stays mounted even as Geralt leads Roach to fresh hay, starts to work through her tack. “I ain’t sharing a bed with one of your nobles.”

Geralt grunts, clicks Eskel’s stallion forward. Eskel’s holding tight to the reins and his warhorse looks ready to rear. “Get down,” he says. “Before that horse throws you.”

Eskel mutters and relaxes his grip, gives Scorpion an apologetic rub to his flank when he dismounts. “Geralt,” he says, and there’s no fooling about left in him. “Where the hell are we?” 

Geralt turns his back on Eskel under the auspices of unsaddling Roach. “It’s empty,” he says. “Owner got killed by a vampire.” 

Some of the tension leaks out of Eskel’s voice. “You’re squatting?”

Geralt grunts, straightens up. His ribs are pushing hard on his chest. Now. Now’s the moment. He’s gonna tell Eskel he owns these sprawling aches, the goddamn house with its terrace, the vineyards, everything. Eskel’s gonna be happy for him. The moment drags. “S’mine,” Geralt says, has to cough and say it again but it doesn’t fucking matter, Eskel’s already staring at him and then he’s coming closer, jostling into Geralt’s space now the danger of some lordly lover has passed, and the relief on him is so strong it’s heady. 

“You fucking prick, I thought I was gonna have to butt heads with some noble.” Eskel’s gloved hands draw through Geralt’s hair and he laughs, quiet and wonderous. “You own this?”

“Yeah.” Geralt’s heart’s beginning to slow, but he’s still braced, still waiting for Eskel to, fuck, he doesn’t know, denounce him for becoming the landed asshole Eskel was cursing. “Payment. For the duchessa’s job.” 

“Fuck me.” Eskel’s smile blooms and steps back, tugs on Geralt’s arm, drunkenly stumbles out of the stables. “I gotta see this.” The courtyard’s ringed with lavender, humming bees, the softness of Touissant’s evenings. Eskel trips over his feel as they take the path up the hill to the house, stops in front of it and just...looks. The render’s coming loose, there are tiles missing off the roof, ivy’s marked the walls but Eskel ain’t seeing any of that, he’s seeing somewhere warm and safe, he’s seeing stability. For a moment, Geralt sees it with him and then all of his doubts come rushing in and he loses it. 

“You own this.” It’s an exhale. “How far?” Eskel turns, looks towards Beauclair’s fairytale spires, tracks the run of Corvo Bianco’s vineyards down the hill. “To the river?”

Geralt grunts in answer. He’s too drunk for this, they’re both too drunk. He should have taken Eskel back to the fucking tent, worked out how to do this in the morning. He wasn’t ready for this reaction, is too fragile and too wasted to process Eskel’s excitement. He sinks down against the warm front of the house, stares at the blurry courtyard until it’s replaced by Eskel’s face, flushed and three eyed. 

“Wolf,” he says and Geralt makes a low noise, his mind looping over nothing, over everything. “Hey, no, look at me. Geralt.” Eskel drops his chosen name like an anchor and Geralt lifts his gaze, tries to focus on Eskel through the haze. “There we are, pup. Think it’s time you sobered up, huh?” 

Geralt grunts as Eskel lifts him, both of them unsteady, bumping elbows and rasping leather. Eskel pauses, listens for the rush of the stream that tumbles down the hillside and then sets his sights on it, walks with steady determination over the rocking ground until the water’s laughing past them, cold and clear and certain as the falling of the night. Eskel strips Geralt out of his doublet, his sword braces, his thick gauntlets, and then sets to himself. Time flows thick as treacle. It’s darker by the time his clumsy fingers drop his own gloves to the bank. 

“You’re gonna thank me for this,” he says as he hauls them both down to the water, “Like a dip in the lake after too much white gull.” They’d done it often enough as pups, and as grown men, got drunk out of their heads and been driven maudlin or to anger, stumbled down dark forest tracks to sink into the chill water where the mountain runoff pooled. 

Like always, regular as the setting sun, Geralt swears blue murder when Eskel pushes him under the stream’s squat waterfall, yelping and snapping at the cold. “Fuck,” he growls and tugs Eskel under with him, wet hands tight in Eskel’s undershirt, the light, at last, returning to his eyes. 


End file.
